Due to the opposition of state Senate lawmakers, Oklahoma’s 2024 legislative session ended without passage of pro-growth income-tax cuts, despite the best efforts of Gov. Kevin Stitt and House Republicans leaders.

But Stitt isn’t giving up, and he renewed his call for tax cuts this week after recent data showed the state government is in a strong fiscal position.

“Oklahoma’s economy is booming,” Stitt wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. “We’ve exceeded revenue expectations this year, and state savings accounts are at historic highs. We have a revenue surplus, which means it’s time for tax cuts. Less taxes, less government spending—more money in your pocket!”

The Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) recently reported that General Revenue Fund collections for fiscal year 2024, which ended June 30, were approximately $8.5 billion. That was $177.7 million above the estimate for the year.

The state ended fiscal year 2024 by making deposits of $262.2 million and $91.3 million into the Revenue Stabilization Fund and Constitutional Reserve (Rainy Day) Fund, respectively. The combined balance in both funds is now slightly more than $2 billion.

That trend continued at the start of the 2025 state budget year. General Revenue Fund collections for the month of July—the first month of fiscal year 2025—totaled $620 million, which was $10.8 million above the monthly estimate and $17 million above collections in July 2023, according to OMES.

In January, a report issued by the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT) estimated that the state government required $6.14 billion in savings over a five-year period if Oklahoma endured another downturn comparable to the “great recession” that struck in the 2008-2010 period.

But LOFT found Oklahoma had sufficient savings to cover those estimated costs, finding the state government had $8.9 billion in total savings at that time. At that point, the state’s Rainy Day Fund held $1.274 billion while the Revenue Stabilization Fund had $401 million, providing a combined $1.675 billion.

In addition, state government also had more than $6 billion in savings in accounts other than the Rainy Day Fund and the Revenue Stabilization Fund at that time, including more than $2 billion in unspent funds from the 2021, 2022, and 2023 state budget years, $3.5 billion in agency revolving funds, and $372.5 million in the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) Preservation Fund that prevents Medicaid cuts.

Lawmakers tapped into some of those savings during the 2024 session, but the amount of money in the Constitutional Reserve (Rainy Day) Fund and Revenue Stabilization Fund has since increased by roughly $325 million since the LOFT report was issued.

Stitt has repeatedly sought to reduce Oklahoma’s income-tax rate, noting that lower rates typically produce stronger economic growth. While he has signed one quarter-point reduction into law since becoming governor, Stitt has pushed for more.

In the 2024 session, Stitt called for reducing the personal income-tax rate to 4.5 percent and putting that tax on a path to full repeal by using growth revenue to offset additional reductions in future years.

Oklahoma’s current top income-tax rate of 4.75 percent is higher than several neighboring states, including Texas (which has no personal income tax), Arkansas (3.9 percent), and Colorado (4.4 percent). Missouri’s top rate of 4.8 percent is almost the same as Oklahoma’s rate. Among bordering states, only Kansas and New Mexico have significantly higher personal income-tax rates than Oklahoma.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data for 2022 show Oklahoma ranked 20th for its ratio of in-migration to out-migration of individuals with incomes of more than $200,000. But 11 of the 19 states with a better ratio of high-income individuals moving to their states also had a lower personal income tax rate than Oklahoma and seven of those 11 states had no personal income tax at all.

The states outranking Oklahoma included neighboring Arkansas and Texas.

One individual, responding on X to Stitt’s call for tax cuts, highlighted how the state’s personal income tax continues to cost the state residents and potential investment.

“You lost 2 lifelong Oklahoma residents yesterday because the legislature won't get rid of the state income tax,” wrote Rob Taylor. “Our Gov is now Kristi Noem. While we appreciate your efforts, Gov Stitt, we got a pretty hefty raise we couldn’t turn down. OK lawmakers need to figure it out.”

Noem is governor of South Dakota, which has no personal income tax. For every person with income above $200,000 who left South Dakota in 2022, the state gained 1.93 individuals with that level of income, according to IRS data. That’s a ratio of nearly two-to-one.

According to data from the Tax Foundation, South Dakota’s effective state-local tax rate is also fourth-lowest in the country.